CHIEFLY FROM NIPPUR. 233 



right angles from the face of the ziggurrat, into the large open court, which extended 

 to the great fortification of the temple. This causeway * was filled up with crude 

 bricks of the same size and mould and formed a kind of elevated platform, from which 

 apparently steps, no longer in existence, led up to the top of the ziggurrat and down 

 into the open court in front of it. 



The whole temple enclosure was surrounded by a large inner and outer wall built 

 of sun-dried bricks. To the N.-W. of Ekur " 30 courses of these bricks are still 

 plainly visible." 2 They compose the ridge of the outer wall and, like the pavement 

 of Ur-Gur's ziggurrat, rest on an older foundation. The complete excavation of i the 

 inner wall will be undertaken in connection with the systematic examination and 

 removal of the ruins around the ziggurrat. 



S ARGON AND N ARAM-SIN. 



Immediately below " the crude brick platform of Ur-Gur," under the E. corner 

 of the ziggurrat, was another pavement consisting of two courses of burned bricks of 

 uniform size and mould. 3 Each brick measures c. 50 cm. in square and is 8 cm. thick. 

 This enormous size is quite unique among the more than twenty-five different forms of 

 bricks used in ancient Nippur, and enables us to determine the approximate date of 

 other structures built of similar material in other parts of the city. Fortunately 

 most bricks of this pavement are stamped. A number of them contain the well- 

 known inscription of Shargani-shar-ali, while the rest bears the briefer legend of 

 Naram-Sin (Part I, Pis. 3 and II). This fact is significant. As both kings used 

 the same peculiar bricks, which were never employed again in the buildings of Nip- 

 pur, and as they are found near together and intermingled in both courses of the same 

 pavement, the two men must necessarily be closely associated with each other. This 

 ancient brick pavement becomes therefore a new and important link in the chain of my 

 arguments in favor of the identity of Shargani-shar-ali 4 with Sargon I, father of 



1 Both the walls of the causeway and those of the ziggurrat were battered, the batter of the former (1 : 8) being 

 exactly half the batter of the latter (1 :4), according to Haynes's Report of Feb. 9, 1895. Cf. Loftus, I. c, p. 128. 



J Haynes, Report of Sept. 8, 1894. 



3 Niebuhr's very recent remarks on the historicity of Sargon I and Naram-Sin (Chronologic der Oeschichte Israels, 

 JEgyptens, Babyloniens und Assyriens, Leipzig, 1896, p. 75) should never have been made after the publication of their 

 inscriptions in the first part of the present work. His insinuations against the priests of Nippur read like a carnival 

 joke, in the light of the facts presented in the following sketch. 



4 Oppert's proposed reading of this name as Bingani sar-iris (Revue d'Assyriologie III, pp. 25f.) is impossible and 

 was declined in Assyriaca, p. 30, note 1. The original picture of the sign Shar in our name is not " l'hieroglyphe de 

 l'arbre en feuilles" (Oppert, I. c), but an enclosed piece of land covered with plants, in other words a plantation, 

 garden, orchard (kiru). Cf. Benin, Origin and Development of the Cuneiform Syllabary, p. 7. 



